REVIEW

AT 5,27; "ZERO BREAKOUT"

Reviewer: LiBruce
Developer: MatGubbins
Genre: Bat & No Ball
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

Influenced by 1972's Pong, Breakout was developed by Steve Wozniak (aided by Steve Jobs, no less) and released by Atari in 1976.

The top portion of the screen is taken up by rows of bricks and a ball is released bouncing off the top and side walls of the screen. When the ball hits a brick it bounces away and the brick is destroyed. The player controls a paddle at the bottom of the screen which is used to deflect the ball (back up towards the bricks) and to stop it touching the bottom of the screen (which results in the player losing a life.)

Like many early classic Arcade games; Breakout has inspired many imitators and clones over the years including Arkanoid which added increasingly complicated level layouts, power ups and brick types. Incredibly, however, the original Breakout only had 2 levels!

In Zero Breakout the player controls a paddle at the bottom of the screen and... you guessed it... that's it.

As in the previous episodes of MatGubbin's Zero Trilogy; all other gameplay elements have been removed which, in this instance, means the bricks and the ball.

Unfortunately, like Zero Asteroids, the reduction of 'gameplay' to nothing but moving left and right leaves you a little wanting and I can't help but feel that we peaked with Zero Invaders.

For those of us who've enjoyed MatG's minimalistic experiments but wished for just a little more, well, anything - do not dispair - he is already talking about potential reworkings/sequels in which he might even consider adding some actual gameplay elements!

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